New Year!!!

The fine details of the Khmer New Year festivities!
So, the lovely country that I currently inhabit just finished celebrating its new year, which marks the new year of the tiger... For Cambodia, the three official days of celebration are somehow turned into a month of fun and games, which I fully participated in. I thought I would describe some of the more entertaining of the games and give you the tools to prepare for your next Cambodian Festival. Basically, though, have as much fun as you can in 100 degree heat by drinking and dancing out the bad of the previous year. And take every opportunity you can to hang out with the opposite sex because the rules are a bit more relaxed when all of the matriarchs are cooking and drinking and all the men can’t keep their hands off the liquor.
1. Home Altar... Every house has a little altar devoted to appeasing the ancestors inside their home. In my house, this was on the open area outside my room. There was a table with incense and candles, religious flags, money, soda, milk, fruits of all kinds, and some shiny things to scare away the bad spirits. Incense was burned there daily and the offerings were consumed after the third day of celebration.
2. Alcohol... No Festival would be complete without some liquor, most commonly beer. Rice wine, palm wine, and muscle wine are all acceptable for your festivities, though, as long as they are accompanied by loud music (sometimes karaoke) and speakers the size of an average car.
3. Food... Eat some Khmer curry and lots of mangoes. Tis the season.
4. Karaoke... is one of the most important activities for a successful party. Sing it with your family, all hours of the day, or if you are with another barang, sing it in a bar with a few Khmer folk listening in on your renditions of ‘I will survive,’ ‘These boots were made for walking,’ and ‘Billie Jean.’ I did do this, in a bar, in Siem Reap, with my pal Jan.
5. Powder / Water... Give your future sweetheart a chance to touch your face in public as he smears baby powder on your face as a wish of good luck for the holiday. I was caught at three parties smeared with baby powder and caught once, no twice, on the street by parties traveling with their powder. Or, if powder and close contact isn’t your bag, try slinging water on whoever goes past. On the last day of the new year, as I found out the hard way, is less of a baby powder smear and more of an ashes sort of smear. I was walking along the street and saw a parade of people smeared entirely in black soot, which was then smeared onto me. They got my arms, legs, neck, and every inch of my face. The best part, though, was going home and watching my family burst out in uncontrollable laughter at the picture that I made.
Games to play...
1. Food eating contests and races... I saw apple eating contests, watermelon eating contests, and some contest where you were only allowed to eat fruit hanging from a string by pushing against your opposite sexed counterpart. There was also a contest where the girls had to peel some small fruits and feed them to the boys in front of them.
2. Slow Biking Contest... Whoever finishes last wins.
3. Tug of War... Thankfully not a boy versus girl situation.
4. Blindfolded Tag... The two people who are ‘it’ have blindfolds on and feel around for all the people that are unable to leave the circle that has been drawn in the dirt. Surprisingly more difficult than you would imagine.
5. Greasy Pole... Money at the top, and a tall and slippery surface in between.
6. Egg and Spoon Contest... Try to carry an egg on a spoon to your friend at the end of the line, transfer the egg, then watch your partner try not to drop it on the way back.
7. Sack Races... I saw a girl who had to wait a few minutes before she could get out the sack as she had lost her skirt in her enthusiasm.
8. Water Transfer Contest... Take a big sip of water, carry it across a length, then spit it into a bottle. First to fill up the bottle is the winner 
9. Balloon Popping Contest... A chance to be rude with a member of the opposite sex as you pop balloons in between your bodies as fast as you possibly can.
10. Musical Chairs... I won once, but only because I pulled a fast one on my competitor by taking the chair elsewhere for me to sit.
11. Clay Piñata... It looks as dangerous as it sounds, trust me... but the prizes inside are much better, candy and cash doused with baby powder.
12. Chopsticks Contest... Try to keep some small hard object in chopsticks from one end of the line to the other. Very difficult!

You know you've been in Cambodia too long when...

You know you’ve been a Volunteer in Cambodia too long when...
... Inspired by fellow Volunteer from Britain (Oly).

...you hand things to people with two hands instead of one.
...after a few meals of Western food (which make you wonder why you decided to eat dairy products), you begin to crave the taste of rice with a simple stir fry.
...all your clothes have been destroyed through a combination of hand-washing, sweat stains, and animal teeth.
...you don’t care that all your clothes are destroyed because you no longer care what you look like.
...you begin to feel chilly at 75 degrees.
...you forget that most TV shows have commercials, and that most seasons of TV shows don’t come in a box for under ten dollars.
...you haven’t the slightest clue what’s happening culturally in your country and your idea of the latest tunes are actually from 10 years ago.
...you pick up a new vocabulary consisting of KhmEnglish words sprinkled with slang from other foreigners...
...the percentage of your time spent on work here is similar to the percentage of time you spent on leisure at home.
...you can finally begin to imagine how life was in the olden days, before transport, electricity, and McDonald’s.
...you are constantly drenched with sweat, laundry water, or rain.
...the 7 hour trip to Phnom Penh “isn’t that bad.”
...the very odd Asian clothes in the market that you once saw in disgust (think ribbons, bows, huge buttons, sewn-in layers, bright colors, and English phrases of nonsense) look wearable.
...you do actually buy clothes from the market and sport them around for your friends.
...you can win a stare down with anyone... anyone.
...condensed milk is a staple of your diet, with sugar, rice, and water.
...days and months have little to no meaning in your daily life.
...cultural guilty pleasures have no ‘guilty’ attached to them.
...you find yourself dependent on things like tiger balm, cooling powder and mosquito coils.
...you find yourself no longer dependent on Wal-Mart, watches and other very American things.
...you begin to have trouble interacting with other foreigners or understanding an English speaker from your country.
...people who just got here confuse you.
...‘late’ is 10 instead of 3.
...you forget holidays that would have been a huge deal back home.
...you’ve seen or heard any number of variations on your name... Kokey, Kelshie, Kel (sigh), etc... and decided to adopt a Khmer name out of ease... mine is ‘Bopha.’
...you listen to enough music to realize how much of it is stolen among artists.
...you have the time to do just about anything you want.
...you have the money to live like a rock star on $100 a month.
...you have been dreaming of the day when you’ll reunite with your family in the airport.
...you find it odd to get a drink to go that’s not in a bag.

New Post!

This morning I woke up with an inexplicably strong craving for mashed potatoes and gravy. Something about the way the light was in my room, or the bed, or my dreams, made me think that I was in grandma’s spare bedroom on a Sunday morning. The blaring wedding music and the roosters chased away the feeling quite quickly, but it was strong this morning. I also had a flashback to the aisles of Indianola’s Wal-Mart while I strolled through the market this morning. At the moment, I’m sitting on my friend’s balcony looking at the dusty streets of the city, watching motos drive by. One’s carrying a ladder. Another driver just stop to pee across the street on a cement wall. He’s not the first one I’ve seen today. It’s remarkably temperate today; the night before last we had a thunderstorm that made the heat less sweltering than usual. In fact, I could be forgiven for thinking it felt like Iowa right now. I miss it quite a lot.

However, I also think that I would miss this country if I left. The stresses are so different, the pressures unusual. Personality wise, I feel quite able to let go and feel more like myself. I feel less pressure to know every aspect of my future, less pressure to work myself into the ground, less pressure to look a certain way. I find the relief of these pressure pleasant. There are different stresses, though; I haven’t shown my shoulders for some time, or been out past 10, or been able to go somewhere without being stared at. It’s something of a trade off. (There is another man peeing on the wall now.) I still like it here. We’ll see how I feel after April, because I’m not planning on leaving my province. I may even have a few things to write about, with my first big Khmer holiday that I’m actually going to participate in. Wish me luck! For now, I’ll just try to find something to fill the void of grandma’s food in my tummy...

Time is FLYING!!!

It feels like time is flying. There is less than 7 months left in my service, which I realize sounds like a long time, but between travelling, goodbyes, and all the frills and thrills of COS, I know that these next few months will fly. This realization paired with the knowledge that some people in my group are going home even sooner has led the volunteers in my area to speculation of our lives at home. They say that culture shock is twice as bad when it is in your own country, and I must agree.

My life here has been an intense and exciting trip into the unknown, but it has also been incredible to behold. I’ve changed so many parts of my life and have found a niche in my village. I know how to get around without anything besides bargaining power and am beginning to function as an adult (this is aided in part by the many example adults I have as friends). However, I do not quite know how to be an adult in a non-Southeast Asian country. This was not part of the instruction I have received from my Peace Corps experience.

First Example:

When I shop for anything, from clothing to toothpaste to travel to groceries, I bargain. They charge me more because my white skin shimmers with dollar signs and my scratchy Khmer reminds them of the ring of a cash register (if in fact they had cash registers… they usually just have fanny packs or baskets full of crumpled bills). If I can’t get them down to a price that I find acceptable, I walk away until they call me back and allow me to pay my (fairer) price. The walk-away works particularly well with tuk-tuk drivers and grocery sellers; in this country they are the opposite of few and far between.

I can see myself in Wal-Mart now… After I’ve stood in the doorway gawking at the high ceilings and praising the weather controller, said hello to whoever was at the door, and stared at a few of the customers in concern, I’ll wander back to the ‘fresh’ foods and try to find something familiar.

“Ma’am, how much is this?”

I’ll say, because just last week, when my students asked me what the words ‘price tag’ meant, I remembered that I haven’t seen one in almost two years. She’ll no doubt look at me with disgust, turn to show me the back of the blue vest, and throw a, “look at the price tag,” over her shoulder. I will, then, look at the price tag…

“$5.00 for bananas??!!??!?! That’s outrageous! Would you take $2.50?”

At this point, I’m sure I’ll be looking at the blur that used to be the saleswoman, as she flees in fear from the out of control girl in the grocery aisle. Perhaps I’ll take my small bunch of (not very good) bananas to the counter and ask the cashier to accept my discount.

“Coupon?”

“No.”

“Sale?”

“Umm…”

“That’ll be $5.00.”

“That’s crazy! You sure you won’t take $2.50? If you don’t, I’m gonna walk away. I will!”

“…”

“Okay, I’m walking away… This is me walking away… I’m going to another seller…”

“…”

“Do you have change for a 10?”

Second Example:

Restaurants here in Cambodia have different rules than those back in America. Every morning, I have a delicious breakfast consisting of coffee and noodle soup (guey tio), in which I dump some chili sauce, pepper, lime, and sugar. In this tiny little restaurant, I am always the only foreigner (I can count on one hand the number of times this wasn’t true). I am also usually the only woman. Here in Cambodia, morning coffee is male bonding time. Other times include lunchtime muscle wine, afternoon Johnny Walker, and evening rice wine. Or anytime cigarettes, for that matter. Sometimes, a patron brings his wife or child, and this person sits quiet and awkward for the entire meal. Well, now that I think about it, meals aren’t really used for conversation as they are in Cambodia. They are used for excessive littering, mouth noise-making, and all manner of rude behavior involving the wait staff.

I can just see myself in Applebee’s…

“Heeyyyy!!!! Food!”

“Yes, miss, can I take your order?”

“[grunt] salad [grunt] coke.”

“Sorry, miss? What was that?”

“[grunt] SALAD [grunt] COKE!”

“Miss, you’re gonna need to be a little more specific.”

“RICE! ARGH!”

This will present something of a problem for me. I also expect in this little outing that I will do one of the following things:

1. Throw something I consider trash on the floor.

2. Yell across the restaurant at the waiter with one lengthy syllable.

3. Slurp or otherwise make a mess.

4. Wipe everything on the table down with a paper napkin, then proceed to throw that napkin on the floor.

5. Sit on the table.

6. Eat the second the food arrives at the table.

7. Use something at the table (perhaps a toothpick) to perform some form of personal hygiene.

8. Say the word ‘delicious’ more times than necessary.

Third Example:

My life here is fraught with attention. Children are either too scared to say something to me or much too brave to say anything normally. They will either shy away from me or yell in my face. There is very little middle ground. I receive an average of 3-6 ‘hello!’s every time I leave the house. This is possibly why I do not leave the house remarkably often. The ‘hello!’s are not limited to children, though. Far from it! With the women, it is usually supplemented with a “srai sa’at,” or “pretty girl” along with some tongue clucking. With the men, it is usually accompanied with some kissing or grunting noises and again, “srai sa’at,” though you can use your imagination to consider the differences in tones between the genders. In fact, perhaps I will break it down for you a little more clearly.

For a child:

“Hello!” means “Holy crap! A white person!! Is she the ghost that my mom keeps telling me about?!” (or) “A foreigner! I’ve never seen anything that tall and fat and pale before!”

For a teenage girl:

“How much skin whitening cream will I need to buy to get skin that color?”

For an adult woman:

“Wow, I wish my skin was that color!” (or) “A girl by herself? What a shame to her family she must be!” (or) “Why does she have so much hair on her arms? Why is her hair so curly? I wonder if she’s married. I wonder if she’s with a Khmer man… How old could she be? She looks too old to be single. When will she get married? (The train of thought doesn’t stop here…)”

For an adult man:

“Daaaammmmnnnnnn!! (The rest is censored… I want to keep this PG).”

I’m sure that walking down the street and being the same color as the majority of the population will be a bit difficult at first. After all, I’ve gotten used to being a celebrity in my little village. I’ve even had to turn away photographers (and that was very unpleasant… a stranger on a moto pulled up to me one day, rather pulled up into my path to stop me, and shoved his phone in my face. It didn’t end well.)

Well, that’s all for now. There are some things that I am looking forward to, I must say. For one, I’m looking forward to ovens not being a rare sight. All appliances, really. Washing machines are in my dreams… TV that doesn’t involve soap operas from across Asia… Dairy products… Something other than ‘hotter than hell’… Libraries… Lots.

Asian Mickey Dees

Bangkok. Christmas. Awesome.

At Mickey Dees in Asia, Ron welcomes you as everyone else does :)

Also, the Subway had a great sign in Thai that talked about how to order your sub... What a place this Bangkok is!

Thanks for Giving!!!!

So, basically, Thanksgiving was amazing.

Participants:

Banteay Meanchey K2s: Myself, Anthony, Deidre, and Dan...

BM K3s Lisa, Kenny, and Emily...

Battambang K2 Bob

Siem Reap K2 Adrian

Pursat K2 Tyler

Kampong Chhnang K2 Greg

BM Australian Anne

BM Brit Jen

Here's the Menu.

Appetizers:

Cheesy Spinach Dip with Bread

Carrots and Bread for Dipping

Vinegar and Olive Oil Dipping Sauce

Summer Sausage, Cheese, and Crackers

The Main Course:

Roast Chicken

Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

Stuffing

Macaroni and Cheese

Corn

Cranberry Sauce

Dessert:

Caramel Slice (British deliciousness)

Apple Crisp

Apple Pie

Pumpkin Pie (with some sort of whipped cream)

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Domination

November 7, 2009

I’ve seen the boys play it for entire afternoons, entire days, with any number of people and colors… They sit on the floor for hours and we lose them to the trance that they fall under. They barely come up for food or water, which is surprising given how much I’ve seen any one of them eat at a time. Eventually they get out of the game, one at a time, until the winner emerges and they start over again.

The game: Risk
The players: Male PCVs of several provinces

The place: Dan’s House

Why do I bring this up, you wonder? I’m not a boy… I don’t generally fall under a game trance… I’m usually doing other things while they play…

But not today. Today, for their last game of the afternoon, I caved and decided to give the game of world domination a try. I got an early hold on Africa and watched as Dan took the Americas and Kenny took Europe, with Anthony holding strong in parts of Asia and Australia. I was a bit stagnant, building up my armies and defending my territory from the invaders. But then, in one special turn, I turned in my cards for some new people, took my people though the middle east and into Australia, took my place in Siam and the “sk” countries of north Asia, and received enough armies to rampage through Europe and continue on to the Americas, where I crushed everyone and finally dominated the entire earth.

May I add that I am the first woman to play amongst the men for the right to the world and that it was my first time playing the game ever.

May I also add that given the circumstances of the barang population in Cambodia, the boys may hold the title for most games of Risk played in a single day (or ever) and that I could possibly hold the title of first woman to win the game of Risk in Cambodia. I may add that to the special skills section of my resume… Undefeated Risk Champion. Armies: Pink.

Student Wisdom

I’m beginning to keep track of some of the more interesting things that I read in my students’ work…

We just studied a chapter on Farming and I had them write some essay about farming in Thmar Puok. Here are some of the more entertaining morsels:

[Cambodia] has a good climate. In most all sections of country it is possible to live comfortable during the whole year without snow, violent storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruption, etc.

Rice is important for people in the world.

About farming, there are many crops which grow on the ground in Thmar Puok like: rice, corn, potato, banana, bean, bread fruit, coconut, custard apple, mango, longan, cucumber, papaya, cassava, sapodilla, wood apple, watermelon, chili, marrow, pumpkin, and a lot more that I cannot count all.

In Thmar Puok district is the place where people always make a lot of crops but I want to write an essay about corn…. In the end I think corn is a crop which I most prefer.

At all for me, I have no ideas to write more.

Things that bring joy to my life

I’ve found, after living here, that it is the little things in life that make it fabulous. In case you are curious about how little the things are that bring happiness to my life, here is a list of a few…

Freshly washed sheets paired with freshly washed pajamas

A new podcast on my computer

A hug from my yiey (grandma)

Showers, especially hot ones

A smile from the girl at my most frequented restaurant

The smell of jasmine near my window

Group get-togethers with homemade Western food and lots of entertaining conversation

A question from a student in any language

Velveeta Shells and Cheese

Anything that comes from an oven

Finding email in my inbox after I’ve been away from internet for awhile

Ice

Plum and peppermint foot scrub and vanilla deodorant

Anything that allows me to scrub the grime off of myself

When my yiey says, “Yiey Sralang Jchaio,” or “Grandma loves Granddaughter”

The smell of Protex Propolis Honey scented soap

Pulling my mosquito net down before I sleep

Learning Aussie and British slang

Dancing with the oldest man in my village

Things from the bakery in Sway

A surprise phone call from friends or from abroad

Spicy Thai chili pepper sauce

Brown sugar and the oatmeal that I put it in

Full seasons of TV shows for less than $5

My Ipod

Hearing the word “Cher” (Teacher), instead of “Barang” (French/Foreign)

Exercise

Photographs

Surprising people with my Khmer after I’ve heard them talking about me

Staring back at anyone who is staring at me and watching them get uncomfortable (I practice this in moderation)

Things that bring the opposite of joy to my life

Not that I focus on the negative, but I’ve got to be honest… Some things here bother me almost all the time. And people should know.

Any combination of staring, old dirty men, military clothing, and conversation about the ‘barang’

The above thing in a place that I consistently frequent

Wedding/Funeral/Festival music blaring across the village at 5:00 in the morning

Drunken men with no filter trying to hit on the white gal

Roosters, and the fact that my house has a ton of them

My co-teacher slacking off, as he does more frequently all the time

Hallowater Here I come!

Now, you may ask yourself what kind of nonsensical English “Hallowater” is, but first, let me explain. You may have thought of last week as the week of Halloween, the holiday of sugar rushes, costumes with varying degrees of cleverness, construction, and even sexiness, but Cambodia thought of last week as the week of Water Festival, also known as Bon Om Tuk.

Last year, I celebrated this holiday by going up north a bit to Banteay Chhmar with my family and inviting all of the PCVs from my province to join me. There were some boat races, some exploration of the local temple ruins, and lots of food and drink. All in all, a pretty excellent week.

This year, however, found the two holidays put together, with our vacation time for Bon Om Tuk coincidentally at the same time as the vacation we may have taken for Halloween. Life was good, and we decided to celebrate over in Siem Reap. Closer than Phnom Penh, but with the most options for night life and Halloween celebrating, it seemed like the perfect escape from the life that we are still enjoying but sometimes tire of; after all, those of us who can travel across the world don’t necessarily like to stay in the same place for 2 solid years, especially if that place is a bit more rural than we would prefer. Either way, after I had a quick stop with our new K3 Lisa at Deidre’s house on the road to Siem Reap, climbing a mountain and enjoying some great fish, we were on the way. We stayed with the K1 RPCVs who now live and work in the town, in their beautiful house with such amazing things as a microwave, a washing machine (which it took at least an hour for 3 of us to try to operate), and a basket of Hallowater candy courtesy of the amazing host called Kara.

Now, Siem Reap can get a bit tiresome for us at times. Things are extremely expensive in comparison to other places around the country, there are so many tourists that the whole town feels a bit like a rip-off, and the tuk-tuk drivers are some of the most obnoxious in the country. Beyond that, though, we blend in, which is a pleasant experience, and we can stock up on our favorite western cuisine and relax. This was one of the most pleasant of my weekends in Siem Reap; perhaps because of the crowd, perhaps because of the holiday, perhaps because of the activities, I’m not sure.

Our first day in the town consisted of a long pool trip – a small secluded place with a little waterfall and good fish and chips and shopping at Lucky Mart for all of our groceries… we did these things in an illogical order and took all the groceries to the pool…

Other activities throughout the weekend included watching The Shining with popcorn (!) on a big screen TV… Having a fantastic massage at a place called Bodia courtesy of our (have I said amazing enough times yet) hosts… Vegging out in front of the TV for hours… Vegging out at a local café for hours… Watching Dan cook a Hawaiian dish called moco loco and then enjoying it… Watching the boat races of the holiday and seeing huge crowds of Khmer folk around… Buying massive amounts of new music for the iPod… Finding most likely the smallest pork and rice stand in the town… and, of course, going out to celebrate Halloween!!!

We decided on Mexican food for our dinner that evening – It’s American-like and it was $1 Margarita Saturday… Our costume was a group one: Gang Green. Each one of us (Myself, Deidre, Stephanie, Adrian, Tyler, Anthony, and Dan) had one a green shirt and we walked together in unison. We felt clever. We went out for a few more drinks after dinner then went dancing at the closest thing to a club in the town. It was a blast, and there were plenty of other costumes. I saw togas, wings, chains, fake moustaches, and any number of oddly put together costumes. In fact, the guy that I danced with throughout the evening had a piece of the fake spider webs on his upper lip… It was quite a party, though I won’t bore you with any more of the details J

I feel that I must devote a paragraph to the foods that I ate over the course of my holiday. It may not be what you expect, from me or from any PCV. After weeks and weeks of rice, the things that I begin to crave are varied… I’ve begun to note that anything with dairy, or grease, or excessive sweetness makes me amazingly ill. It took over a week for me to recover from the food that I consumed this weekend… Fish and chips, Chicken and Camembert Salad, Cheese Quesadilla, Pizza, a Massive Cheeseburger, Pancakes, Grilled Cheese, Cereal and Yogurt, and a few Khmer dishes. Incredible. Sickening. Well Worth the Misery. And I can say that about any weekend of travel…